Alva Courses vs Teachable
Alva Courses is a Shopify app that builds, sells and delivers online courses natively inside your existing store — native Shopify checkout, no separate-platform transaction fee, and customer data you own in Shopify. Teachable is a standalone LMS that hosts your courses, checkout and student accounts on its own platform. Here's how the two compare on cost, data ownership, and the businesses each one is built for.
Side by side at a glance.
| Feature | Alva Courses | Teachable |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Inside your Shopify store & customer account | Standalone platform on its own site / subdomain |
| Checkout | Native Shopify checkout you already use | Teachable's own checkout |
| Separate-platform transaction fee | None — only your normal Shopify payment processing | Charged on lower tiers, removed on higher tiers (check current pricing) |
| Customer data ownership | Buyers are Shopify customers in your admin | Student accounts held on Teachable's platform |
| Student login | Existing Shopify customer account — no second login | Separate Teachable account |
| Course player languages | 34 languages, follows the storefront language | Check Teachable's site |
| Course builder | Drag-and-drop: courses → sections → lessons | Yes — curriculum builder |
| Video hosting | Alva Video Hosting 50 GB (Pro) + YouTube, Vimeo, Loom | Built-in video hosting |
| Sell Shopify products in lessons | Shopify Product block: live add-to-cart cards | No built-in Shopify product block — standalone platform |
| Quizzes & certificates | In-lesson quizzes + custom completion certificates | Quizzes & certificates available |
| Grading & graded certificates | Grade coursework (A–F or your own scale); grade on the certificate | Check Teachable's site |
| Drip scheduling | Drip by days after enrolment, schedule by date | Drip / scheduled content available |
| Discussions / comments | Native per-lesson comments with moderation | Course comments / community features |
| Marketing & affiliate tooling | Use Shopify's marketing, discounts & app ecosystem | Built-in affiliate, coaching & sales-page tools |
| Separate website builder | No — uses your existing Shopify theme | Yes — its own site / page builder |
| Shopify Flow automation | 13 triggers, 7 actions, 6 templates · both plans | Not available — standalone platform |
| Shopify Sidekick | Ask about courses & students; drafts enrolment-email edits | Not available — standalone platform |
| Pricing model | Flat $9.99 or $14.99/mo on top of your Shopify plan | Tiered monthly/annual plans (check current pricing) |
Teachable is a well-established, full-featured course platform with its own site builder, sales pages, affiliate program and coaching products — a strong fit for creators who want a standalone teaching business. Its plans and any transaction fees change over time, so confirm the current details on the Teachable website. The comparison above focuses on what matters most to merchants who already sell on Shopify.
When Alva Courses is the better fit.
Teachable is built to be a destination of its own — a separate site, checkout and student database. That's exactly right for some creators. But if you already run a Shopify store, sending buyers to a second platform fragments your checkout, your data and your customer relationship. Seven reasons Shopify merchants pick Alva Courses:
Students buy your course through the exact same Shopify checkout you use for everything else — same payment methods, same discounts, same tax setup. No second cart on a separate platform, and no separate-platform transaction fee skimmed off each sale.
Every buyer is a normal Shopify customer. The order, email and contact record live in your Shopify admin, so you can export it, segment it, email it and re-target it like any other order — instead of it sitting inside a third-party LMS.
Learners access a "My Courses" area inside their Shopify customer account and play lessons in a branded storefront course player — sidebar lesson list, progress bar, completion ticks — all on your domain. No external subdomain, no extra password to forget.
Alva Courses is $9.99/mo for Unlimited or $14.99/mo for Unlimited Pro (which adds 50 GB of Alva Video Hosting with no per-video limits) — on top of the Shopify plan you already pay for. No per-sale platform cut, no jump to a higher tier just to remove fees.
Courses sit beside your other products, so you can bundle, cross-sell, run Shopify email and abandoned-cart flows, and use your existing apps. Instant delivery fires on the Shopify thank-you page and order status page the moment the order is paid, plus a branded enrolment email once you switch it on.
Alva Courses is a Shopify app, so course events such as an enrolment, a completed lesson or a graded quiz can start Shopify Flow workflows, and Flow can enrol students or send their course emails. Both plans include 13 triggers, 7 actions and 6 ready-made templates, and Shopify Sidekick can answer questions about your courses and students. See how Alva works with Shopify Flow.
With the Shopify Product block, a lesson can show a live product card — image, price and buy button — so students can pick up kits, materials or another course mid-lesson. Items land in your store's normal cart and checkout. Add a Shopify product to a lesson.
Choose Alva Courses if you…
- Already sell on Shopify and want courses in the same store
- Want one checkout, one login and one customer record
- Care about owning and exporting your customer data in Shopify
- Want to avoid a separate-platform transaction fee on each sale
- Like flat, predictable monthly pricing
- Want to bundle and cross-sell courses with other products
Teachable may suit you if you…
- Want a standalone course business outside of Shopify
- Don't run a Shopify store and want an all-in-one platform
- Need its built-in sales-page and site builder
- Rely on its native affiliate or coaching-product tooling
Three differences that matter.
Native checkout vs a separate platform
Teachable runs your courses on its own platform with its own checkout. That gives you a self-contained teaching site, but it also means a second checkout for buyers, a second customer database to manage, and — on its lower tiers — a per-sale transaction fee on top of payment processing. Higher Teachable plans remove that fee, so the cost depends on which tier you're on; check their current pricing for the exact figures.
Alva Courses sells the course through the Shopify checkout you already operate. Buyers use your existing payment methods, discounts and tax rules, and Alva Courses adds no transaction fee of its own — you pay your flat $9.99 or $14.99 monthly app subscription plus Shopify's normal payment processing. The moment the order is paid, the course is delivered via a branded email and on the Shopify thank-you and order status pages.
- Alva model
- Native Shopify checkout, no platform fee
- Teachable model
- Own checkout; tier-dependent transaction fee
- Best for
- Alva: existing Shopify stores · Teachable: standalone course sites
Who owns the customer relationship
With a standalone LMS, students sign up and pay on that platform, so the account, email and purchase history live primarily there. To market to those buyers from your store, you typically have to sync or export the data out of the LMS.
With Alva Courses, every course buyer is a normal Shopify customer. The order and contact record sit in your Shopify admin from the first sale, so you own and export the data, build customer segments, run Shopify email, discounts and abandoned-cart flows, and treat course buyers like any other order. Members and enrolments are managed in the Shopify admin too, with bulk CSV import, CSV export, per-student progress and completion-rate analytics.
- Data home (Alva)
- Your Shopify customers & orders
- Member tools (Alva)
- CSV import/export, progress & completion analytics
- Data home (Teachable)
- Student accounts on the Teachable platform
One store experience vs two destinations
Teachable gives each course business its own site and student portal. For a creator whose entire brand is teaching, that separation is a feature. For a merchant who already has a Shopify storefront, theme and audience, it splits the experience across two destinations with two logins.
Alva Courses keeps everything in one place. Courses are built in the Shopify admin and delivered in your storefront, so they share your theme and branding. Lessons support a rich editor with text, video (Alva-hosted plus YouTube, Vimeo and Loom), images, PDFs, audio, quizzes, Zoom links and buttons, with sequential gating, drip scheduling and completion certificates. Students stay on your domain from purchase to certificate.
- Alva storefront
- Your theme, your domain, your customer account
- Lesson blocks
- Text · video · image · PDF · audio · quiz · Zoom · button
- Teachable
- Separate site & student portal
Transparent, flat monthly.
Alva Courses has two flat monthly plans, each with a 14-day free trial and no per-sale platform fee — you add it on top of your existing Shopify subscription. Teachable uses tiered monthly or annual plans, and historically charged a per-sale transaction fee on lower tiers that is removed on higher tiers; pricing and fees change, so confirm the current figures on Teachable's site rather than trusting a number that may be out of date.
| plan | Unlimited $9.99/mo 14-day free trial | Recommended Unlimited Pro $14.99/mo 14-day free trial |
|---|---|---|
| Courses, members & comments | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Progress tracking & certificates | ||
| Drip scheduling & access deadlines | ||
| Custom email domain | ||
| Alva Video Hosting (50 GB, no per-video limit) | — | |
| Separate-platform transaction fee | None | None |
See Teachable's current tiers and any transaction fees on the Teachable website. Full details on Alva Courses pricing are on the Alva Courses pricing page.
Moving from Teachable to Shopify.
- Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store and start the 14-day free trial on Unlimited or Unlimited Pro.
- Export your content from Teachable. Download your lesson videos, PDFs and any worksheets, and note your curriculum structure so you can recreate sections and lessons.
- Rebuild courses in the Alva drag-and-drop builder. Create sections and lessons, paste in text, upload to Alva Video Hosting (Pro) or link YouTube, Vimeo or Loom, and add quizzes, PDFs and certificates.
- Create the Shopify products. Each course becomes a Shopify product, sold through your native checkout — set price and discounts as needed.
- Import your students and go live. Bulk-import existing students by CSV to grant access, run a test order to confirm thank-you-page delivery (and the enrolment email, once you switch on Send enrollment emails), then point your audience at your Shopify store.
Alva Courses fits a wide range of teaching businesses on Shopify — see how it works for online educators and coaches & consultants. For a wider view, read Shopify course app vs standalone LMS.
Answers before you switch.
Keep the checkout, the data — and the student — in Shopify.
Install Alva Courses from the Shopify App Store, build a course in the drag-and-drop editor, and sell it through your native Shopify checkout. No separate platform, no per-sale platform fee, and every buyer stays a Shopify customer. 14-day free trial on both plans.